moved guardedly, but rapidly,
across the mountain into Culpepper.

Under these circumstances, General McClellan had an excellent
opportunity to strike a heavy blow at Jackson, who seemed to invite
that movement by crossing soon afterward, in accordance with
directions from Lee, one of his divisions to the east side of the
mountain on the Federal rear. That General McClellan did not strike
is not creditable to him as a commander. The Confederate army was
certainly divided in a very tempting manner. Longstreet was in
Culpepper on the 3d of November, the day after General McClellan's
rear-guard had passed the Potomac, and nothing would seem to have been
easier than to cut the Confederate forces by interposing between them.
By seizing the Blue Ridge gaps, and thus shutting up all the avenues
of exit from the Valley, General McClellan would have had it in his
power, it would seem, to crush Jackson; or if that wily commander
escaped, Longstreet in Culpepper was exposed to attack. General
McClellan did not embrace this opportunity of a decisive blow, and Lee
seems to have calculated upon the caution of his adversary. Jackson's
presence in the Valley only embarrassed McClellan, as Lee no doubt
intended it should. No attempt was made to strike at him. On the
contrary, the Federal army continued steadily to concentrate upon
Warrenton, where, on the 7th of November, General McClellan was
abruptly relieved of the command.

He was in his tent, at Rectortown, at the moment when the dispatch was
handed to him--brought by an officer from Washington through a heavy
snow-storm then falling. General Ambrose E. Burnside was in the tent.
McClellan read the dispatch calmly, and, handing it indifferently to
his visitor, said, "Well, Burnside, you are to command the army."

Such was the abrupt termination of the military career of a commander
who fills a large space in the history of the war in Virginia. The
design of this volume is not such as to justify an extended notice of
him, or a detailed examination of his abilities as a soldier. That he
possessed military endowments of a very high order is conceded by most
persons, but his critics add that he was dangerously prone to caution
and inactivity. Such was the criticism of his enemies at Washington
and throughout the North, and his pronounced political opinions had
gained him a large number. It may, however, be permitted one who can
have no reason to unduly commend him, to say that the r